


Riyeht

by giidas (KatushkaK)



Category: Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Vulcan Calligraphy, mindmeld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatushkaK/pseuds/giidas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘I love you, d’you know that.’</p>
<p>As it was more of a statement than a question, Spock deemed it unnecessary to answer Jim out loud, instead touching his forehead to Jim’s. Spock’s left hand made its way to Jim’s bare shoulder-blade and as they shared their breath, Spock began to write in his mother tongue, the script flowing down Jim’s bare back like water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riyeht

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betad, mostly prompted by the discovery of the [Vulcan Calligraphy](http://korsaya.org/vulcan-calligraphy/).

They were lying in bed when Jim said the actual words out loud for the first time. It has been an exhausting day after concluding a tiresome mission and Spock was debating if it would be more beneficial to meditate or to sleep when Jim entered their bedroom in only his sleeping pants, his preferred nighttime attire. His hair was still wet and Spock realized Jim managed to hide the level of his exhaustion even from him. He only chose the water based setting of the ‘shower’ when his muscles ached and he was ready to pass out.

Spock lied down, his decision made for him, and Jim followed with a deep sigh, lying on his side, facing him. The only point of contact between them was Jim’s right hand caressing Spock’s left. Affection, fondness, love, contentment is what flooded Spock’s mind as Jim sighed again, his eyes closed, his face devoid of the tightness that was present during the mission.

‘Spock,’ Jim exhaled as his fingers made their way from wrist to palm, slowly, tenderly.

‘Jim.’

‘I love you, d’you know that.’

As it was more of a statement than a question, Spock deemed it unnecessary to answer Jim out loud, instead touching his forehead to Jim’s. Spock’s left hand made its way to Jim’s bare shoulder-blade and as they shared their breath, Spock began to write in his mother tongue, the script flowing down Jim’s bare back like water.

_T’hy’la. Ashayam. K’diwa. K’hat’n’dlawa._

_Jim._

His fingertips tingled with the love and affection that Jim was feeling towards him, and Spock noticed Jim’s lips curled into a small smile.

‘Are you writing on my back in Vulcan, ashal-veh?’

Spock’s answer might as well have been  _and what if I am_ , Jim could interpret his eyebrows so well. Jim chuckled.

‘Well, don’t let me interrupt you.’

Spock linked their fingers, pressing their palms together, opening the link they so rarely used because it gave Jim headaches if used too much too frequently ( _they’re worth it Spock and they’re not even that bad will you stop it_ ) and Spock was met with the familiar warmth and brilliance that was Jim and he sent him the question that he did not want to ask out loud.  _Why_.

After the years, even if they did not do this frequently, Spock was familiar with Jim’s mind and navigating it became almost second nature, so when Jim started to think about his reply, understanding the barrage of emotions and random thoughts and words was not a challenge for Spock anymore.

_Surely you’re not asking me why I love you_  was the loudest, flashes of memories of the two of them together as background noise in Jim’s head. The amusement was evident and Spock scoffed inwardly.

_I really don’t know, ashal-veh - well - I mean - I know you can feel it when we’re like this, I know I do feel what you feel for me—_  At that Spock tightened his fingers a little _— but I realized i never actually told you out loud before._

As they both knew how the other felt, the verbal reassurance, those three words humans held in such high esteem, felt redundant.

The _i love you_ were Spock’s fingers brushing the back of Jim’s hand in the line in the mess hall, it was Jim’s ‘Be safe, Mr. Spock’ before the First Officer beamed down for a First Contact, it was the coffee Spock replicated before his own tea every afternoon, it was Jim’s shoulder against Spock’s in the turbolift, for just a second.

Spock showed him all of this, replaying all those moments for Jim to see. He adds, out loud,

‘You are mistaken, Jim. There has not been a day when you have not told me.’

 

\----

 

Jim started learning Vulcan at approximately the same time their chess games became a regular thing without either of them having to invite the other. They just showed up, Spock at Jim’s quarters on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 20:00 and Jim at Spock’s on Thursday’s at 19:00.

Really, Jim’s a curious being and he doesn’t like it when he doesn’t understand something, so him learning Vulcan? Inevitable, really.

It all actually started on an away mission, if he’s being honest.

They were being shot at by the natives, something that no longer surprised Jim but managed to get the Vulcan equivalent of a shocked expression on Spock’s face each and every time it happened.

Taking cover behind a low wall, Spock was returning fire while Jim was trying to contact the Enterprise for an emergency beam up but his communicator was being stubbornly uncooperative, naturally.

Jim will forever deny that he shrieked like a cat that got her tail stepped on when the wall suddenly crumbled. The expected shower of stones and rubble did not happen, though, instead Jim found himself being shielded by Spock’s body, the Vulcan’s voice a low rumble as he said something incomprehensible right into Jim’s ear.

‘What was that, Spock?’

‘Did you manage to hail the Enterprise, Captain?’ Spock ignored his question, pushing Jim to the left where the wall still held.

Later, Jim realized it must’ve been Vulcan that Spock was speaking, although why his UT didn’t translate it for him was a mystery. Spock ignored all his demands to tell him what he said and because Jim never wanted that to happen again, learning Vulcan it was.

It took more than a year before he was confident enough to speak a word of Vulcan to Spock, but it was worth every minute Jim spent with his nose in a book for the surprised smile it got him one morning when he greeted his First Officer in his native language.

Much later, during a meld, Spock showed him what he said way back on that one disastrous away mission. Translated to Standard, it would basically be ‘why does this always happen to you’. Jim snorted at the frustrated indignation he could feel from the memory, at the way memory-Spock wanted to huff at the wall for daring to fall on his Captain when they were in dire need of cover.

Jim planted a kiss next to Spock’s nose, right at his meld point, lingering there, thinking that it all worked out just fine in the end.

\----

Writing in Vulcan, that was another challenge altogether.

Oh, it’s beautiful, the traditional calligraphy looks more like art than writing, the letters like beads on a string. They remind Jim, most of all, of waterfalls. The _patam_ is the cliff’s edge, a straight horizontal line that guides the reader, where the start and the end of a sentence can be marked. The _plat_ is the spine of a word, it’s what holds the letters together, strict vertical lines falling from the _patam_ like water falls from the cliff’s edge. The letters though, they’re like droplets of water, round and swirling and _pretty_.

Even boring things suddenly look interesting when written in Vulcan Traditional. Jim frequently forgets himself while reading, and just looks at the beautiful script and is reminded of rain, which makes him wonder what Spock sees when he looks at books in Standard. All those letters with no clear guiding lines (in books at least), piling up into words and paragraphs, the writer being able to continue on and on without much planning because there is always a next page for another line of text, while a Vulcan would have to think three _platlar_ ahead for his words to maintain _sochya_ , a harmonious equilibrium.

Jim no longer forgets that _all_ Vulcans feel. That Spock feels was no longer in question, and Traditional convinced Jim of the rest of the species. If they came up with something so intricately beautiful while still so admirably logical and impressively difficult, well. Of course they feel. He cannot imagine a parent that would not be proud of their little pointy eared offspring when they produced their first sentence in Traditional. He cannot imagine a person whose heart would not feel ready to burst after receiving a note from their lover, even if it was something as simple as ‘i miss you’. And yeah, he knows it’s just the way they write, but in the 23rd century, a time of PADDs and interplanetary video calls, it would mean so much more if someone took the time to buy paper, sit down and _write_ in this beautiful script.

And so it is decided. During a boring shift on the bridge, Jim codes himself a writing program with the _patam_ on top of each page and a faint _plat_ that appears when Jim taps the _patam_. He spends months perfecting his letters, and it’s not easy keeping it a secret from Spock what with Jim not yet being too good at shielding and this project being on the forefront of his mind most of the time, but somehow he manages.

There are many words that would tell Spock just how much Jim cares. Jim ponders _t’hy’la_ and _ashayam_ and _ashal-veh_.

What he ends up writing on the skin of Spock’s forearm after another one of their chess games, in their shared quarters now, is _K’hat’n’dlawa._

Spock’s breathing is shallower by the end, and Jim can feel his speeding pulls with his left thumb that’s gently placed on Spock’s wrist. The word is long, made even longer by the flowing script, so much so that Jim finishes it in the palm of Spock’s hand, his finger tingling from the contact.

Spock is looking at him, has been looking at him the whole time, eyes dark and intent, the points of his ears turning greener by the minute. When Jim was starting on the ‘d’, Spock’s right hand cradled Jim cheek, the warmth of it making Jim close his eyes for a brief moment.

Jim ends the word with a _wu-harr_ even though it’s not really needed as this wasn’t a sentence, but he cannot resist dragging his finger down Spock’s middle one, all the way to the fingertip. He bows his head and places a kiss into the middle of the offered palm, lingering, placing another one further down, at the base of the fingers, flicking his tongue out to taste, hearing a sharp inhale and feeling a twitch of the fingers.

\----

Spock has performed precisely 32 mindmelds before he melded with Jim for the first time. 24 have been shared with his father and mother (9 and 15, respectively), 3  melds were performed on him by healers, four he performed during missions and one he shared with T’Pring when they were initially bonded.

He never melded with Nyota, aware of the consequences sharing ones mind has for humans. It took his mother two years to overcome the persistent headaches after a long meld with his father and when they bonded, she had to stay home for nine days, her brain adjusting to the presence of another, something so foreign for humans as it was natural for Vulcans.

Jim, however, was persistent in pointing out to Spock that after the meld with his older self, barring the emotional transference, there were no side effects, no headaches or nausea. Spock’s reluctance persevered for another five months, during which time he explained, at length, what a meld - not an ‘emergency information dump’ as Jim so liked to call his shared meld with Prime - entailed, what is its significance and how it might come to change their relationship.

When the decision was made, they arranged their shifts so they would have Saturday and Sunday free, trying for the meld on Saturday morning.

Spock meditated beforehand, Jim slept for eight hours and had a healthy breakfast ( _is this really necessary? you know i don’t do breakfast, Spock, just coffee. ugh, okay_ ) after which they arranged their quarters, opting to use the chairs where their frequent chess matches took place, moving the table aside so they could move them closer.

No amount of preparation or meditation could have prepared Spock for the touch of Jim’s mind. The shallow impressions he got before, from touching Jim’s skin, and the surges from kissing his meldpoints, which he so enjoyed, paled in comparison to the full impact of another person, of Jim, of his _t’hy’la_ , his _k’hat’n’dlawa,_ in his mind. Having read about melds in Amanda’s journals, Jim knew better than to follow the urge to plunge deep into the inviting confines of Spock’s organized thoughts and memories and Spock appreciate the restraint, admired Jim’s resolve. He cannot say he was as successful, starved for such a connection as he was, he enveloped Jim’s mind in a warm bright silky cocoon of affection, respect and regard he felt for him.

Communicating in words and sentences in the meld would take time and practice on both their parts, so Spock opted for showing Jim what he was incapable of voicing due to lack of words in any language he knows that would permit him to adequately describe what he felt and how deeply, at those moments.

_ \- the gold tunic, Jim’s hands on the arms of his Captain’s chair, his head bowed slightly, eyes closed, taking a deep breath. The moment the decision to take Khan back to Earth to face trial instead of gunning him down was made. Shoulders squared, blue eyes clear, looking right ahead, making an announcement to the whole crew - _

_ \- sandy brown hair appearing red in the light of the Suns of the abandoned planet, face upturned to soak up the natural heat, eyes closed again, lips forming a slight smile, palms opened by his Captains sides, facing the Suns too, his whole body like a flower facing the source of life, absorbing it and Spock cannot take his eyes of those palms, long slender fingers, he cannot - _

_ \- crouched down with a phaser set to stun, refusing to abandon Spock even after the First Officer has insisted no less than eight times that the Captain needs to get back to the beam up coordinates, the determination clear on his face, his arms and hands steady when they aim, his voice soothing when he talks to Spock, refusing to leave him, again and again - _

_ \- laughing with his head thrown back, baring his neck to Spock in his quarters, in only his black undershirt, his whole face lined with mirth, one of his hands still extended to move a pawn, the other slapping his thigh, opening his eyes to look at Spock with eyes full of amusement and - _

_ \- lying, pale, so uncharacteristically still, in the white confines of a biobed, his face still bruised because there were other pressing injuries, so many of them (his left thigh and calf, both shot, right hip, right side of the abdomen, both knife wounds, fingers of his left hand all broken, a head wound, numerous other scrapes and minor injuries, so much blood, so much of it. Spock wishes he could forget), Spock sits by his Captain’s right side and softly cradles his right hand in both of his - _

The meld ends abruptly when Jim flinches away from Spock’s fingers, apparently overwhelmed. The vomiting that follows is somehow unsurprising, yet still unwelcome. Jim kneels in the bathroom for twenty minutes, brushes his teeth and takes Spock by hand, leads him to bed.

‘It wasn’t the meld, you know,’ is what Jim says when he finally settles, his head on the pillow next to Spock, his hand on Spock’s forearm.

‘It was your feelings, the sheer immense amount and depth of them. I never knew one could feel such longing, such crippling loneliness or debilitating pain. I thought I’ve felt all of those at one moment of my life or another, but I was wrong. I don’t think humans are even capable of feeling so much, so profoundly,’ he exhales, sighs really, and brings his forehead to rest against Spock shoulder.

‘I thought what I felt for you was all consuming, could never possibly be rivaled by what you feel for me,’ Jim’s fingers tightened and Spock turned, bringing his arm around the strong back, his cheek against the sandy brown hair. Jim’s lungs expanded with an indrawn breath and he concluded,

‘I was wrong.’


End file.
